Mader, who is white, didn't, thinking deadly force was not necessary. He believed that the man, Ronald Williams, who is black, was a threat to himself but not to others.

Another officer shot and killed Williams, but Mader's decision to not shoot would cost him his job as a police officer in the city of Weirton, West Virginia, according to allegations in a federal lawsuit he filed last week against his former employer.

The complaint described Mader's 2016 encounter with Williams and alleges that city officials wrongfully fired Mader. Williams wanted to commit "suicide by cop," the complaint said — and the handgun he was carrying was not loaded.

Timothy O'Brien, Mader's attorney, said what happened to his client is uncommon.

"It's more ironic that we had many instances where an officer uses deadly force and nothing happens to them," O'Brien told The Washington Post. "Here, we have an officer who uses restraint and he gets punished. Odd would be an understatement."

Weirton Police Chief Rob Alexander did not return a call from The Washington Post seeking comment, but officials have told local media that Mader was fired for other reasons in addition to his encounter with Williams. Cy Hill, a private attorney for the city, said he cannot comment.

Williams' death and Mader's subsequent firing come at a time when some police departments' use of deadly force, particularly in interactions with black suspects, has come under fire.

The incident occurred on May 6, 2016, when police received a call from Williams' girlfriend, who said he'd threatened to kill himself with a knife. After finding out that an officer was on the way, Williams got his unloaded handgun from his car, saying he will get the officer to shoot him, according to the complaint.

The woman called 911 again and told the dispatcher that Williams had a gun but that it was not loaded. But Mader did not know that when he arrived at the scene because that information was not radioed to him or to the two other officers who arrived later, O'Brien said.

Mader tried to persuade Williams to drop the gun, believing he was "not aggressive or violent," the complaint said. But Williams, his hands to his side, pleaded with Mader over and over to just shoot him.

The two other officers arrived. At that point, Williams waved the unloaded gun, and one of the two officers fatally shot him.

All three officers were placed on administrative leave as part of standard procedure. Mader returned to work a few days later, but he was again placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the incident.

He was fired on June 7, 2016, for "failing to meet probationary standards of an officer" and "apparent difficulties in critical incident reasoning," the complaint said. Hancock County Prosecutor Jim Davis later announced at a news conference that the shooting was justified.

In September, Mader spoke about the circumstances of his termination, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Alexander, the police chief, had told him that he placed the two other officers in danger and that he was fired because of that.

City officials held a news conference shortly afterward and said the Williams shooting was not the only reason they fired Mader. Alexander told reporters that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story was inaccurate and relied on a one-sided story from a "disgruntled employee."

A news release from the city describes two other incidents that officials say led to Mader's termination. One involved mishandling a death investigation by failing to determine that it was a homicide. The other involved searching a man's vehicle without probable cause or a search warrant, and cursing at the man's wife. In the Williams shooting, officials said, Mader "froze" and did not communicate with the other officers involved.

"We had done different avenues in terms of retraining, placing him with a different training officer," City Manager Travis Blosser told reporters. "None of those seemed to work."

O'Brien, however, said neither of the two other incidents resulted in disciplinary action against Mader. In the one about the mishandled death investigation, other officers more senior than Mader were at the crime scene, he said. O'Brien added that he'd talked to the woman who was cursed at and that she said she complained about the conduct of another officer, not Mader.

Mader was hired as a probationary officer for the Weirton Police Department in June 2015 and completed training at the West Virginia State Police Academy later that year.